Charlie Jane Anders

Two webseries premiered this past week, and NBC's superslick Gemini Division, starring Rosario Dawson, grabbed all the attention. But the rough-and-ready Venus Rises also launched its first episode, about ore miners in deep space. In Venus Rises, humans have abandoned the Earth, and there's a class division between the Martian overlords and the Venusian workers. Click through to find out more. The first episode, "Ikarus part 1," is actually a prequel to the main series. The series is somewhat confusingly made up of three actual episodes, and a handful of "interspace" episodes, which are either prequels or stuff that takes place outside the main action. Like the exclusive clip we featured from this series a while back, the first episode features low production values and occasionally dodgy acting. But it's also edgy and freaktastic, especially the way the male characters constantly sexually harrass Aeriana, the deaf pilot who's also a hacker. And I'm looking forward to learning more about this hard-edged dystopian post-Earth solar system, especially after the intriguing glimpses in the opening credits. [Venus Rises]